Alvin Baltrop

Early life Baltrop was born in 1948 He discovered his love of photography in junior high school, Because he wanted to spend more time taking photos at the Hudson River piers, he quit his job as a cab driver to become a self-employed mover. He would park his van at the piers for days at a time, living out of his van to take pictures. He knew every person that he photographed, and people often volunteered to be his subjects. Younger boys and men at the piers often confided in him about their sexual orientation, their relationships with their families, their housing status, and their work. The piers saw cruising, anonymous sex, and occasional art interventions. His photographs not only captured human personalities, but also the aesthetics of the dilapidated piers.

In 2008, University of Rochester art professor Douglas Crimp wrote an article about Baltrop for Artforum magazine that regenerated interest in Baltrop's work.

In 2012, the artist's solo exhibition titled Perspectives 179— Alvin Baltrop: Dreams into Glass in the Contemporary Art Museum Houston included almost 100 gelatin silver prints that were shot between 1969 and 1980. The most captivating and intimate images in the show were shot while Baltrop was in the Navy. These are dated between 1969 and 1972 and had an unmistakably erotic atmosphere. In his photograph called Three Navy Sailors, a trio of young black men in uniform tease the camera. The man to the far right slyly smiles and sticks his tongue out while the man next to him throws a side glance. The third man to the far left is seen suppressing a laugh. Many of Baltrop's pictures from the pier use distance to enhance his voyeuristic approach. In Don't let them see you, published in his book called The Piers, Baltrop had positioned his camera inside a darkened area looking out at the shadowy foreground and a male figure looking down at another, who is crouched beneath him and performing a sexual act. Neither one of them acknowledges the presence of the nearby photographer and, by extension, the viewer. In another image, Man looking in a window, we see a man wearing a shirt and nothing from the waist down, except his boots, peering into a building through broken windowpanes. This act of voyeurism parallels the photographer's intention when taking this image.

The Bronx Museum held a retrospective of his work in 2019 The Life and Times of Alvin Baltrop. Items from his personal archive (owned by the Bronx Museum) were shown to the public for the first time in this exhibit.

Personal life

According to one journalist, Baltrop came out as gay at fourteen years old. Baltrop had long-term relationships with men and women, but preferred the umbrella term "gay" to "bisexual."

Baltrop was diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s. Impoverished and without health insurance, curators and filmmakers attempted to exploit him for their own financial gain. He died on February 1, 2004, at the age of 55.

Collections Baltrop's work is held in the following permanent collections: Museum of Modern Art, New York